Men’s 110m hurdles semifinals
The first four of each of the two semi finals advance to tomorrow’s final.
There was a lot of wood-breaking in the first semi finals. Thiago Jacinto Dias who was the fastest out of the blocks heavily hit the first hurdle while on the outside Qatar’s Nassim Mezyan Brahimi fell to the floor after touching the second hurdle. It therefore became a two horse race between USA’s Kenneth Ferguson and Jamaica’s Richard Phillips who were running elbow to elbow for most of the race.
At the tape the American was 1 hundredth of a second faster than the Jamaican with both being guaranteed a good lane draw for the final. Pushing hard to recover from hitting the first hurdle, Dias finished third in 14.11 while the last qualifying spot was claimed by Germany’s Stefan Wieser with a new pb of 14.16. In lane two Stanislav Sajdok (CZE) hit a number of hurdles and lost his balance.
Lane eight was cursed tonight as heat two saw Mohamed Al-Othman of Kuwait crash into the first hurdle and collapsd to the floor. Meanwhile in lane four Shamar Sands (BAH) had an excellent and powerful start, which led him to mid-race with a clear advance. Hitting hurdles 4 and 6, the Bahamian gradually lost ground to USA’s Antwon Hicks whose finish was devastating.
Hicks equalled his personal best in 13.59 while Sands set a new national junior record of 13.67 (and lowered his pb by four tenths of a second). China’s Dongpeng Shi was third in 13.81 while Croatia’s Jurica Grabusic was the last qualified with a time of 14.24.
